My life as a Missionary in the Santiago East, Chile Mission

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April 13, 2015 (Week 45)

I haven’t told you much about Ignacio, and I regret it, because he is our current best investigator. Like, he is planning to get baptized this weekend, but don’t tell anyone, or you might jinx it. He has an interesting story, starting before he was born with his mom, Lilly.

Lilly was a good, active member in our ward back in the day. When she was 17, she served as a stake missionary, and she had a strong testimony. She had a lot of friends, and everyone we have talked to has very fond memories of her. She continued strong until she got married to a non-member. He was a cop, and before they got married, he said he had no problem with her beliefs. But as time went on, it became more and more apparent that he did. He was violent, resorting at times to physical abuse, from what we were told, and he slowly became more and more verbal about his opposition to the church. She had two kids with him before they separated (Antonia and Ignacia), but by then she had fallen away from the church.

E´ Granda and Mora had passed by there before, but hadn’t found much success. Ignacio particularily, who disappeared when they walked into the house. But during my first change here, we found her name on the list of members that the bishop gave us and went back. We talked with them, and, with the help of Brian (convert of E´ Granda) who goes to the same school as Antonia, we found them a lot more receptive. We asked Lilly what kept her from attending church, and she said “nothing”, so we invited her. We started having lessons with them in the house of a member once a week, and found that they really were ready to learn. Lilly was the first to go to church, much to the thanks of the family of members who made friends with them. They went and knocked on her door to bring her to church. Ignacio started with the mutual activities, but, being a very spiritual youth, enjoyed church a lot. It helped that he had so much support from the other kids his age in our ward. Antonia was always working, so we didn’t have so much success with her.

We invited Ignacio a few times to be baptized, but he didn’t feel ready. We prayed for patience and kept teaching him the lessons, including one where we taught about the Word of Wisdom, Law of Chastity, Prophets and Tithing all in one lesson (we wanted to make it so he wouldn’t be able to say that he didn’t know enough, so we did all the hardest stuff of lesson 4 at once.) Then, we had a lesson where we taught about the 10 Commandments, and we finally put a date for baptism. But it was weird. We had the most disorganized lesson ever, thanks to the family, which ended with us having to explain why Nephi killed Laban. Elder Granda put the date, and, honestly, if we didn’t fast so much, I don’t think he would have accepted it. He said that between us and church, his questions were being answered and he felt like this was something he needed in his life. I don’t know what type of questions were being answered, but whatever.

Lilly is doing really well. She just seems… happy. We were kind of worried she wasn’t being honest about a few things, but she seems to be a perfect support for her son. In fact, she has caught the spirit of missionary work again. Yesterday, they showed “Meet the Mormons” in the stake center (I think I may be the last of all my friends to see that movie) and she brought her boyfriend, who she claimed wants to hear from us.

It’s kind of weird, because I don’t really have too much desire to baptize. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been all that upset if I came home without helping a single person being baptized. For some reason, something stops me from wanting it. I think I know the doctrine fine; I know why we need to be baptized, and it’s not like I’m not doing all I can to help Ignacio step into that font. But I honestly never really saw it happening, and I was perfectly happy with it.

Javier is… okay. We finished all of the lessons, and we think that he is depressed. He wants to get baptized so bad that last time we went he actually started crying, but he can’t because of the marriage. It’s a little complicated to explain, but from what I understood, his wife wants a complicated wedding, and he just wants to do it so he can join the church. I think there is one more thing that the Lord wants him to learn before he gets baptized, and it is our job to find out what.